Arthur J. Goldberg Dies at 81; Ex-Justice and Envoy to U.N.

By ERIC PACE

Published: January 20, 1990

Arthur J. Goldberg, who rose from humble beginnings in Chicago to become Secretary of Labor, an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court and then United States representative to the United Nations, was found dead yesterday morning in his apartment in Washington. He was 81 years old.

Dr. Michael Newman, Mr. Goldberg's physician, said the former Justice died late Thursday or early Friday of cardiac arrest from coronary artery disease. A maid found his body lying on a sofa.

Prof. Alan M. Dershowitz of Harvard Law School, who clerked for Justice Goldberg and was a longtime associate, said Mr. Goldberg had been active until his death on project to form a committee to monitor human rights developments in Eastern Europe and China.

Turning Point in Life

Associate Justice William J. Brennan, a fellow liberal who served with Justice Goldberg, said yesterday: ''The nation suffered a grevous loss in the death of Justice Goldberg. He served his nation brillantly as Secretary of Labor, Ambassador to the United Nations and Justice of the Supreme Court. Another great contribution was his work as a lawyer in bringing together the major labor organizations of the country.''

Warren E. Burger, the retired Chief Justice of the United States, said, ''As a Justice of the Supreme Court, he was a balanced and thoughtful jurist.''

A wrenching decision that was a turning point in his life occurred in 1965, when Mr. Goldberg gave up his lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court at President Lyndon B. Johnson's urging to assume the U.N. post. It was a decision he later said he regretted.

On the one hand, as Mr. Goldberg said years later, he believed that as U.N. representative he could reverse the Johnson Administration's Vietnam policy and bring about peace negotiations. On the other hand, it meant giving up a judicial position in which Mr. Goldberg's admirers believed he would have made a greater mark on American history.

''In all candor,'' Mr. Goldberg said on the day he was named to the United Nations post, ''I would rather the President had not asked me to undertake this duty.''

Mr. Dershowitz said the Justice had told him, ''Although I would love nothing more than to live out my years on the Supreme Court, America has been too good to me for me to turn down its President.''

Three years later he resigned, citing frustrations and disappointments, including ''the limitations of the scope of my office'' in regard to getting the United Nations involved in a Vietnam peace effort.

In 1970 Mr. Goldberg entered the race for Governor of New York as the Liberal-Democratic candidate, but he was soundly defeated by the Republican incumbent, Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Mr. Goldberg was an owlish, unimposing figure with remarkable energy and legal, judicial and negotiating skills. Johnson praised him in his memoirs as ''a skilled arbiter and a fair-minded man.''

It was in 1961 that the Chicago-born lawyer, then general counsel of the United Steelworkers of America, was named Secretary of Labor by President John F. Kennedy. In 1962, Kennedy named him to the Supreme Court.

A Mover in Historic Merger

The self-made son of an immigrant carter, Mr. Goldberg did much, as a union lawyer, to bring about the historic merger in 1955 of the American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

His legal work plunged him repeatedly into important decisions involving labor and management. Admirers recalled him as the leading labor lawyer of that day. When he was named general counsel of the Congress of Industrial Organizations in 1948, he became the chief of the staff of lawyers working for its vast membership.

He was involved on behalf of labor in various court cases testing the Taft-Hartley Labor Act, which empowered the Government to obtain an 80-day injunction against strikes that endangered national health or safety. He was also the victor in an important 1949 court ruling affirming that pension issues were a proper subject for collective bargaining.

After the A.F.L.-C.I.O. was formed, he became the main figure to draft rules on ethics. In 1959, he represented the steelworkers in negotiations during a strike that lasted more than 100 days and that led to a contract that was widely seen as a major gain for labor.

As Labor Secretary, Mr. Goldberg was energetic in striving to settle labor disputes. He played a role in the Kennedy Administration's celebrated confrontation with the steel industry. Early in 1962 he helped bring about a noninflationary settlement between the steelworkers and the industry. He prodded the two sides by warning that a strike could seriously upset the nation's economy.

But 10 days later the United States Steel Corporation decided on a price increase, angering Mr. Goldberg and Kennedy. Other steel concerns followed suit. Then, with Mr. Goldberg working behind the scenes, the Administration successfully applied pressure to get steel executives to back down on the price rise. He met with Roger M. Blough, chairman of U.S. Steel, on a day when another steel company revoked its own price increase, and soon U.S. Steel also yielded.